


Interviewing a Witness

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2014-02-01
Packaged: 2018-01-10 19:20:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1163498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Interviewing a witness proved more dangerous than Jim expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interviewing a Witness

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sentinel nThursday prompt 'keep your chin up'

"Jim! Will you _please_ keep your chin up!"

"I'm trying..." With an effort, fighting the instinct to keep his head down to protect his throat, Jim raised his head a little, giving Blair better access to the nasty cut on that throat.

"This will probably hurt, so dial down touch," Blair said.

There was silence for some moments, then Jim said, "Okay."

Carefully, gently, Blair dabbed antiseptic on the cut. "I still think you'd be better with a couple of stitches in this."

"It's not deep enough," Jim said. "It's begun to heal already."

Blair applied a little pressure and a few drops of blood oozed from one end of the cut. "Okay, no hospital, no stitches but I _am_ going to use a couple of butterfly strips on it. They should help minimise the scarring - because this will scar." He applied himself to the cut on Jim's throat again.

As he cleared the first aid items away, Blair thought over the events leading to Jim's injury.

***

It had all seemed straightforward; three witnesses to an assault to be visited and interviewed - no reason to expect anything out of the ordinary.

The first two, Don Evans and Roger Murchison, had indeed been routine, and not particularly informative; the two men had been walking down the road together, fairly late at night, heard screams from a side road they were passing, and had been concerned enough to investigate; and threequarters of the way along that road, they found another man bending over the body of a young woman. He had looked up as they approached, saying, "I think she's dead."

"Do you know what happened?" one of them had asked.

"I heard the screams, and came to see what was wrong," he had replied. "Then the screams stopped, and a man ran past me, pushed me aside. By the time I regained my balance, he was gone, and I came on and found her."

Evans had called 911, then all three had waited till the police - and an ambulance - arrived.

That agreed with what they had told the patrol cops at the time, so Jim thanked them, gave them his card with the routine, "If you think of anything else, call me." 

He and Blair then went on to see the third witness, Harry Locke, expecting his story to be the same.

Except... his heartbeat had rocketed as soon as they introduced themselves, and Jim knew that it wasn't just anxiety, worry at being questioned. Unlike the other two, this man was very, very nervous.

Jim ignored the tell-tale physical reaction as he explained why they were there. But then, as Locke reached the point in his story where he claimed to have been pushed by a man running past him, Jim interrupted.

"Can you describe him at all? General build, height?"

Locke shook his head. "I hardly saw him, and it was dark," he said.

"You know... I don't think there was any man running down the road," Jim told him. "I think you attacked the woman, then when you heard someone coming, you had the presence of mind to stay put and claim you'd just arrived."

Locke stared at him for a moment, glanced at Blair, clearly dismissing him as a threat, and lunged at Jim. The sheer speed of his action caught Jim by surprise, as did Locke's surprising strength - he didn't look particularly muscular, but Jim realized instantly that even as fit as he was, this man was easily a match for him.

Neither Jim nor Blair saw where Locke got the knife; all they knew was that within seconds of grabbing Jim, Locke was holding a knife to his throat.

"No fucking pig is going to get the better of me!" he snarled. The knife point dug into Jim's throat, and a trickle of blood ran down his neck.

The clear threat to Jim kept Blair motionless. "Come on, man," he said persuasively. "You don't want to kill a cop. It's so not a good idea."

"Who's going to know?" Locke asked, a sadistic smile on his face. "You can't get past me; I can kill you both - "

"You think the PD doesn't know where we are?" Blair asked. "You think the other cops won't know who lives here? Yes, you could possibly kill us both, even maybe manage to dump our bodies somewhere - but as soon as we turn up missing, all the cops in Cascade will be looking for you."

"I don't have to stay in Cascade," Locke growled, taking his attention off Blair for a moment as Jim tried to twist free. The knife cut enlarged a little. "Fucking backwater compared to New York. Dunno why I ever left there!"

"Maybe because the cops there were after you?" Blair suggested.

Locke drew back the hand holding the knife; Blair suspected that he wanted to throw it at the infuriating little man who kept hitting the bullseye with his comments. It was the chance he needed. Before Locke could decide which of them he wanted to kill first, Blair threw the mug he had grabbed from the table in the moment when Locke had been distracted, straight at the man's face.

Locke's move to protect his eyes was instinctive and instant; Jim grasped the chance to pull free and get his arm around Locke's neck. The mug bounced off one of Locke's hands and hit the floor. 

Blair was already moving; he grabbed Jim's gun and aimed it at Locke. "Just give me an excuse," he murmured, his voice cold. Locke looked at him, and wisely stopped struggling. Moments later, he was handcuffed, Jim guarding him and reading him his rights while Blair called for back-up.

***

Jim flatly refused to go to the hospital, insisting that the cut wasn't much more than a scratch, and Blair finally gave in, though reluctantly. However, once they had filed their report and gone home, Blair insisted on dealing with the cut.

Jim was surprised how difficult it was to - in Blair's words - keep his chin up to give his partner access to the cut; but finally it was cleaned, disinfected and butterfly bandaged to Blair's satisfaction.

As Blair cleared away the first aid things, Jim said, "Chinese for dinner?" 

Blair glanced at him. "I think... I might have sweet and sour king prawns for a change."

"Sweet and sour king prawns it is," Jim agreed, and reached for the phone.


End file.
